Public and/or proprietary networks carry more and more traffic using network devices that process the traffic at ever increasing bandwidths, data rates, processing speeds, etc. To achieve these bandwidths, data rates, processing speeds, etc., network devices have been equipped with more complex and/or a greater quantity of high performance components, such as higher speed processors, higher capacity switches, faster memories, and/or other components that have improved the performance of the network devices over earlier versions of the network devices.
The components that are capable of higher performance often generate more heat than the components that they replace. Additionally, the greater quantity of components can cause circuit board component density to increase, which generates more heat within a particular volume within the network devices. Unfortunately, the network devices are not always capable of dissipating the heat, within the particular volume, without a modification that increases a cost associated with the network device. Additionally, the greater quantity of components often corresponds to installing a greater quantity of heat dissipation devices on the circuit board. The installation of the greater quantity of heat dissipation devices may occupy an increased amount of circuit board space, which may increase cost of the network devices. Also, cooling multiple network devices using a single heat dissipation device is not always feasible due to variations in dimensions (e.g., thicknesses) of the network devices which may not coincide with dimensions of the heat dissipation device.